A year ago the women swimming and diving team had a .500 season in the ACC, compiling a 5-5 record. This year, however, is a different story. Despite the teams recent loss against rival North Carolina, the Pack finished up the season with a 7-2 record. Starting today, the female swimmers will begin their final events of the season, in the ACC tournament.
For the seniors, it will be their final event of the season and their State swimming careers. However, the seniors learned of some bad news early on in the season, as the team learned that only a certain number of players are eligible to participate in the final tournament of the season due to budget cuts, effectively breaking up this swimming and diving team that has become a family over the course of the season.
“That kind of caught us by surprise because half the team was seniors,” senior Maresa Like-Matthews said. “We had 10 girls that were seniors this year, because usually in the past you could bring everyone but [this year] only 18 could score and the others could swim exhibition.”
Despite the adversity Like-Matthews thinks that it actually fueled the team.
“In a way it kind of helped our team, so that gave every girl had motivation to swim fast and go out there and try and beat the other girls so they could be apart of the team for ACC’s,” Like-Matthews said.
After the disappointment of the reduction of players settled in, the swimming and diving teams turned their focus to the pool and the upcoming season. The teams knew they had a chance to do something special this year.
“Ever since the first meet this year, we knew this was going to be an awesome year,” senior Patrice Dason said. “From every single swim meet, to every practice, to every weight session, we’ve really put in 100 percent so that we could know this final meet is go to be the best ACC’s we’ve had.”
Dason saysthis year, with the culture that the seniors have presented to the younger swimmers, that the entire team has come together and understands that it’s a team sport. Therefore, everyone needs to put all they have into the team itself.
This meet is something the players have known about all season and have inevitably trained for all year. Senior Anna Linkenauger believes the team’s standards are set high for this final meet. She said they hope to finish with an exclamation point to their turnaround season after last year’s ninth place finish.
“As far as what we want to accomplish at ACCs, we want to finish at the top five,” Linkenauger said.
After these seniors take their final dive into the pool, it’s all over for them, but the seniors see what is in store in the future for the program.
“We’ve had a very, very strong freshman class. They are definitely are the backbone of this team,” Linkenauger said. “Getting a good freshman class can definitely help with years to come.”
But Linkenauger did not want to take away from her fellow seniors, stating that the 2010 class was an “unforgettable class” in itself. She is proud to be a part of this turnaround from her freshman year, saying the team has so much to offer.
However, with it being some of the women’s last meet at State, emotions are sure to be high as the meet wraps up.
“Even at my last home meet I teared up a little bit,” Dason said. “That was an awesome meet to end on for the home meets, so I’ve already started feeling the bitter part of it.
“But the sweet part is that [it’ll] be a whole new life after this. It’ll be so different. It’s going to be really strange not having to wake up at 5:05 in the morning to come to practice and swim and be with my team.”
But Dason knows that even though she won’t be physically here on State’s campus, she knows she won’t lose touch with her fellow swimmers.
“I’m going to miss my teammates so much,” Dason said. “I know there always be here, it’ll just be a different feeling.”
